Yet another fucking reading thread...
Started by dogpoet, 05 Mar 2010 - 02:35 pm
1341 replies to this topic
#1121
fractal
Vile product of an Internet messageboard
Posted 25 Mar 2012 - 07:58 pm
| QUOTE (Gibby @ Saturday Jan 14 2012, 12:46 am) |
| Adored Hesse's Steppenwolf, absolutely brilliant tale, whoever did the translation needs a medal. |
Started reading 'The Glass Bead Game' a while back but left it in the pub by accident. Remember really enjoying it. First book I'd read where the future wasn't a dystopia I think. Though I never finished so maybe it turned out to be one of them.
#1122
dogpoet
Posted 26 Mar 2012 - 11:34 am
| QUOTE (fractal @ Sunday Mar 25 2012, 07:55 pm) |
| The pacing and atmosphere of it is great I think. There's a very off atmosphere pervading the whole thing even before the source of that atmosphere. The art is very complimentary as well. Good mix of tension and body horror I'd say. Oh and I've no idea who on Angst will be interested in this, hopefully some people because it's rather good, but could your post not be construed as a spoiler? Though I believe it would still read effectively knowing the ending. |
Good point. I'll just edit my post a bit.
(Though, as you say, it's quite likely that no bugger on angst will read this one anyway. Which is a shame, really.)
Part time writer, full time loser
#1123
dogpoet
Posted 26 Mar 2012 - 12:15 pm
As far as comics go, there's one that a few on here might be interested in being launched by DC in a couple of months. It seems they've got China Meiville writing a new series to refit some crap '60s character as a horror story...
Part time writer, full time loser
#1124
Ted
Posted 01 Apr 2012 - 07:23 pm
Finished White Tiger. Decent but you don't have to write anything groundbreaking to win the Booker it would seem.
Reading A Week in December by Seastian Faulks now. Read 350 pages of it and still not sure if I like it.
Reading A Week in December by Seastian Faulks now. Read 350 pages of it and still not sure if I like it.
Fisting...anal intercourse...genital clamps...whipping.
#1125
dogpoet
Posted 03 Apr 2012 - 08:34 pm
| QUOTE (Ted @ Sunday Apr 1 2012, 07:23 pm) |
| Finished White Tiger. Decent but you don't have to write anything groundbreaking to win the Booker it would seem. Reading A Week in December by Seastian Faulks now. Read 350 pages of it and still not sure if I like it. |
Nope.
I mean, name us a groundbreaking Booker winner? I'm buggered if I can think of any.
After finding I couldn't get a copy of volume two of the Dent-Young translation of the Water margins for less than thirty quid, I've given up and bought the Foreign Language Press version of the Sidney Shapiro translation of the whole thing instead. A four volume set in a slip case, that would be quite flash if it didn't seem so flimsy: pages are so thin you can see the text on the other side, and the cover wrapper was peeling off volume one before I got it out of the shrinkwrap. Also, it's full of typos, which is a real fucking cheek for the best part of twenty quid.
Not a bad translation (typos aside) though it doesn't have quite the panache of the Dent-Young, and has dropped most of the poetry that's mixed into the text in that one as well. Unless one of the characters is singing while drunk, that's all gone.
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#1126
dogpoet
Posted 15 Apr 2012 - 08:55 pm
Most of the typos in this translation seem to be in the first volume: the second reads a lot better.
Part time writer, full time loser
#1127
dothestrand
Posted 17 Apr 2012 - 12:32 pm
Read a history of Salonica, now on The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.
#1128
Gibby
Posted 19 Apr 2012 - 03:09 pm
I'm reading a book called Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow. It is listed as a 'contemporary fantasy novel' on Wikipedia but has a bit in common with China Mieville insofar as it features themes and styles more associated with modernist writing. Doctorow is also an advocate of more liberal Creative Commons laws, and gives his books away free online (and the first 30 pages of the Kindle version is a lengthy justification of this in the form of a manifesto). Anyway, it's good, he can write, would recommend, especially at the price.
#1129
Ted
Posted 20 Apr 2012 - 09:16 am
A Week in December was alright. I still couldn't decide whether I liked it after I'd finished the thing. I couldn't decide if it was a really chilling or really naff portrait of modern London. Some of the characters were a bit weak.
Then read Post Office by Bukowski. Loved this. Great central character. Has there been a film? Who played Chinaski? Could be any number of actors but I imagined a young Jack Nicholson in the lead.
Now on with Reflections in Broken Glass - a Neil Young biography by Sylvie Simmons. I expect there are hundreds out there but I have nothing to compare it to but I'm enjoying it anyway.
Then read Post Office by Bukowski. Loved this. Great central character. Has there been a film? Who played Chinaski? Could be any number of actors but I imagined a young Jack Nicholson in the lead.
Now on with Reflections in Broken Glass - a Neil Young biography by Sylvie Simmons. I expect there are hundreds out there but I have nothing to compare it to but I'm enjoying it anyway.
Fisting...anal intercourse...genital clamps...whipping.
#1130
Gibby
Posted 20 Apr 2012 - 01:03 pm
| QUOTE (Ted @ Friday Apr 20 2012, 10:16 am) |
| Then read Post Office by Bukowski. Loved this. Great central character. Has there been a film? Who played Chinaski? Could be any number of actors but I imagined a young Jack Nicholson in the lead. |
There's a film of Bukowski's Factotum with Matt Dillon as the lead, it's pretty good.
#1131
Ted
Posted 20 Apr 2012 - 02:36 pm
| QUOTE (Gibby @ Friday Apr 20 2012, 01:03 pm) |
| There's a film of Bukowski's Factotum with Matt Dillon as the lead, it's pretty good. |
I've seen that yeah. Pretty good.
Fisting...anal intercourse...genital clamps...whipping.
#1132
Ted
Posted 20 Apr 2012 - 02:38 pm
| QUOTE (Ted @ Friday Apr 20 2012, 09:16 am) |
| A Week in December was alright. I still couldn't decide whether I liked it after I'd finished the thing. I couldn't decide if it was a really chilling or really naff portrait of modern London. Some of the characters were a bit weak. |
Come to think of it this novel reminded me a bit of The Line of Beauty by Alan Holinghurst but wasn't anywhere near as good.
Fisting...anal intercourse...genital clamps...whipping.
#1133
fractal
Vile product of an Internet messageboard
Posted 20 Apr 2012 - 07:52 pm
Currently reading Al Jazeera - How Arab TV News Challenged The World by Hugh Miles. A little outdated as it only goes up to 2004-2005 but it's been an interesting and enjoyable read so far. Mainly talks about the reaction to the channel both from the Arab leaders and leaders in the West.
#1134
dogpoet
Posted 22 Apr 2012 - 08:04 pm
Any hysterical Americans ranting that Al Jazeera'ss the propaganda arm of the jihad against the west in that one?
Part time writer, full time loser
#1135
fractal
Vile product of an Internet messageboard
Posted 24 Apr 2012 - 08:23 pm
| QUOTE (dogpoet @ Sunday Apr 22 2012, 09:04 pm) |
| Any hysterical Americans ranting that Al Jazeera'ss the propaganda arm of the jihad against the west in that one? |
Yeah there's a fair bit of that. There's also a fair few Arab leaders and other nutjobs accusing them of basically being the Middle Eastern media wing of the Elders of Zion.
#1136
dogpoet
Posted 25 Apr 2012 - 11:32 am
Can't be both, I'd have thought.
Part time writer, full time loser
#1137
smink
Posted 27 Apr 2012 - 11:26 pm
Currently working my way through:
The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald (struggling with this, the praise on the cover from A.S. Byatt should have warned me off really)
The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex - Mark Kermode (great)
The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald (struggling with this, the praise on the cover from A.S. Byatt should have warned me off really)
The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex - Mark Kermode (great)
#1138
Olly
SDIFOARTOAP -- i'm going to shoot all the squirrels
Posted 29 Apr 2012 - 11:04 pm
hey, smink! i'm about to finish Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson.
#1139
smink
Posted 03 May 2012 - 08:53 pm
| QUOTE (Olly @ Monday Apr 30 2012, 12:04 am) |
| hey, smink! i'm about to finish Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson. |
Hi Olly! I'm still reading the above.
#1140
dogpoet
Posted 04 May 2012 - 11:47 am
Finally finished the Shapiro translation of The Water Margins.
A thin book next, I think...
A thin book next, I think...
Part time writer, full time loser
